Marbled White
Melanargia galathea
This truly beautiful butterfly is a curiosity, as it is a member of the brown family but looks very different: its striking wings with their unmistakeable black and white chequer give it the appearance of something like a miniature flying chessboard.
Larval food plant: grasses especially red fescue, and also sheep's fescue, tor-grass and Yorkshire fog. Where seen: on unimproved grassland in various locations. Its stronghold has always been the western part of the chalk downlands of southern England, but in the last 20 years it has spread north and east and can now be found from Yorkshire to south Wales.
Current conservation status: thriving, with an 82 per cent increase recorded since 1976.
Jim Asher
